ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Masatoshi Yamasaki, Hironobu Unesaki, Akio Yamamoto, Toshikazu Takeda, Masaaki Mori
Nuclear Technology | Volume 177 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 63-72
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13327
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Erbia-credit super high burnup (Er-SHB) fuel offers a means to introduce >5 wt% 235U enrichment fuel; small amounts of erbia added to all the high-enriched UO2 powder can reduce the initial reactivity to <5 wt% enrichment level. By using this erbia credit, the new fuel can be treated as <5 wt% enriched fuel, and most modifications to the existing facilities and equipment can be avoided. One of the key issues for developing the Er-SHB fuel is to validate the criticality safety analysis tools for this fuel based on a series of experiments using fuel with small amounts of erbia in the entire core. For that purpose, a series of critical experiments have been performed at the Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA). Four critical cores were constructed utilizing two different average enrichments, three different erbia contents, and four different H/U ratios. Numerical analyses have also been performed using several different cross-section libraries, and the results were compared with the measurements from the KUCA experiments. These results confirm the validity of the calculations and the cross-section libraries for determining erbia reactivity. This paper outlines the basic concepts of the Er-SHB fuel, the erbia experiments, and the analyses results.